Yi Yul-gok was the most important philosopher of the Yi dynasty. His philosophical theories, together with those of Yi Toe-ge, another scholar of the same dynasty, have been discussed by some from various viewpoints for about three hundred years. He t...
Yi Yul-gok was the most important philosopher of the Yi dynasty. His philosophical theories, together with those of Yi Toe-ge, another scholar of the same dynasty, have been discussed by some from various viewpoints for about three hundred years. He took a critical attitude towards the views of Chu Hsi, the great scholar of the Sung dynasty in Chinese history, and towards the views of Yi Toe-ge, thus establishing a particular kind of Confucian rationalism.
One of the objects of special concern in his theory of education was ethical morality. According to him the eventual aim of education was to attain moral qualities of sages of old. This theory of his still plays an important role in our education.
He placed special emphasis on the deliberation for the solution of problems, the recognition of the laws of nature, and the importance of filial piety as the essence of all behaviors. He advocated learning based on human quality, arguing that the vague of learning lay not in the establishment of theories for theories' sake and the pursuit of their unusual and peculiar effects but in the acquisition of right rules of human life and the eagerness to apply them to every angle of everyday life. All his theories were set up systematically by the comparison of others' theories with his own ideals and experiences.
He was in deed an educator and statesman as well as a Philosopher, a man of practice as well as ideals. An ideal nation in his eyea was the one in which a ruler governed his people with justice-and with humanity.
The writer's opinion is that we admit the incessant stream of noteworthy philosophy on education and that we had better make the best of the important spirit lying at the bottom of that stream of ideas which has affected the course of the history of Korean education.